

















Cfje |)olifmiI glufus of % Cbunticir Classes. 


A 

DISCOURSE 


DELIVERED BEFORE 


THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OP AMHEEST COLLEGE, 

July 10, 1866, 


By G. S. HILLARD. 



St 

BOSTON: 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
1 8 6 6 . 










Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


3 J \} h & 



Universi 


Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 


DISCOURSE.* 


It has been remarked by observers who are no 
longer young, that the subjects discussed at the 
Commencement exercises of our colleges are grow¬ 
ing more and more political in their aim and scope, 
and that themes drawn from science and literature 
are becoming less attractive to our young scholars 
than those which glow with the warmth reflected 
from those struggles for power in which their fa¬ 
thers &re engaged. It is not strange that this 
should be so under free institutions like ours. Lit¬ 
erature and science address the understanding, and 
call into play the perceptive and reflective faculties; 
but politics move the passions, stir the blood, and 
quicken the languid pulse of apathetic natures. If 
there be more of nutriment in the former, there is 
more of excitement in the latter. And the rapid 
growth and marvellous material development of our 
country is a fact so palpable to the sense, so gratify¬ 
ing to our national pride, that we cannot wonder 
that in precise proportion to this growth and devel¬ 
opment should be the impression made upon the 

* Owing to the length of this Discourse, several passages were omitted 
in the delivery. 






4 


minds of the young by the wondrous spectacle that 
is going on around us. 

Nor is this impression confined to the young, nor 
is it passion alone that is moved, nor pride alone 
that is gratified, by this spectacle. The ripest and 
highest intellectual faculties, the most piercing in¬ 
sight, the amplest grasp of generalization, the most 
accurate discrimination, the largest experience, all 
the powers and accomplishments which go to make 
up the political philosopher or the philosophical 
historian, can find in the progress and fortunes of 
our country, in its past, its present, and its future, 
objects of observation and contemplation equal, to 
say the least, to anything which history has re¬ 
corded. To be indifferent to the movement and 
play of our institutions is to be indifferent to the 
fate and fortunes of humanity itself. 

There is a striking passage in Burke’s u Appeal 
from the New to the Old Whigs,” in which he cites 
in praise of the English Constitution the fact that 
it had been held out to the admiration of mankind 
by Montesquieu, whom he calls “ a genius not born 
in every country or every time; a man gifted by 
nature with a penetrating, aquiline eye; with a 
judgment prepared with the most extensive erudi¬ 
tion ; with an Herculean robustness of mind and 
nerves not to be broken with labor, — a man who 
could spend twenty years in one pursuit.” Can we 
doubt that, if Montesquieu were now alive, he 
would observe with profound and absorbing interest 
the great experiment of self-government of which 


5 


our country is the scene? We need hardly ask 
this question; for a countryman of Montesquieu’s, a 
man of kindred genius, has made the institutions of 
our country the subject of a work which the con¬ 
senting judgment of mankind has pronounced the 
most important contribution to the science of pol¬ 
itics that has been made since the publication of 
“ The Spirit of Laws,” and of which John Stuart 
Mill has said that it was “such as Montesquieu 
might have written, if to his genius he had super- 
added good sense and the lights which mankind 
have since gained from the experiences of a period 
in which they may be said to have lived centuries 
in fifty years.” 

Profound thinkers like Thucydides, Aristotle, and 
Machiavelli have observed the struggles, the growth, 
and the decay of democratic communities, and 
recorded the lessons of warning and instruction 
which such observation inspired ; but the contests 
of Ancient Greece and Mediaeval Italy were but 
as the mimic fights of the manikins of a puppet 
show, when compared with the gigantic struggle 
which we have just passed through. It is true that 
the passions were the same now as they were then. 
There was the same mingling of base and exalted 
motives, of selfish and heroic aims, in the actors; 
the spectators sometimes mistook strut and rant for 
dignity and power, as they did then: but here the 
stage was so much grander, the spectacle so much 
more imposing, that all comparison fails. We have 
seen the energy which comes from democratic insti- 





6 


tutions put forth upon a scale that reminds us of 
the forces of Nature herself,—her tropic storms, the 
breaking forth of her subterranean fires, and the 
irresistible sweep of her wintry floods. The world 
in times past has beheld vast armies summoned and 
guided by one despotic will; it has beheld mod¬ 
erate bodies of armed citizens voluntarily associated 
to defend their rights: but we have seen the soil of 
the continent trembling under the tread of hosts 
more numerous than those of Xerxes or Napoleon, 
not moved by any power foreign to themselves, but 
consciously and intelligently obedient to one ani¬ 
mating and assimilating impulse, so that the spirit 
of the whole was but the multiplied and aggregated 
spirit of each member. The world has witnessed 
nothing like this before. It is a spectacle unparal¬ 
leled alike in impressiveness and instructiveness. 

I confess I cannot divorce my thoughts from 
themes like these. They seize upon the mind with 
a grasp that cannot be shaken off: they color the 
business of the day, they mingle with the dreams 
of night. I cannot imitate that honest country 
gentleman who was following a fox with his hounds 
across the field of Edgehill, while the battle w r as 
going on between Rupert and Essex. While such 
grave political projects as those which lie before us 
are awaiting a solution, I cannot linger in the green 
pastures of literature, or lie down beside its still 
waters. If I speak at all, I must speak of that 
which lies nearest to the heart. 

And yet I must not forget that I am addressing 


7 


an association of scholars, whose bond of union is a 
common interest in literature, who have enjoyed 
the privileges of education, and are clothed with the 
responsibilities which such privileges create. A mere 
political harangue would be a departure from the 
obvious proprieties of the place and the hour. 

Permit me, then, to take a subject which shall 
not be inappropriate to a society of scholars, and at 
the same time shall not be remote from the sphere 
of the patriot and the citizen, and ask your atten¬ 
tion to some remarks on the political duties of 
educated men under institutions like ours, and 
especially in times like these. 

The duties of educated men are modified by the 
relations between them and the rest of the commu¬ 
nity, and these relations are influenced by the social 
and political institutions of the nation in which 
their lot is cast. The peculiarity of our country is, 
that the scale of cultivation has not so many de¬ 
grees marked upon it as in some others. If our 
scholars are less finished and thorough than those 
of Europe, we have no such ignorance, such want 
of cultivation, in the bulk of the people as is there 
found. Indeed, we cannot with propriety speak 
here of the educated and uneducated classes, for 
the true division is into the more and the less edu¬ 
cated classes. There is no class here that is abso¬ 
lutely and entirely uninstructed. Many of the for¬ 
eigners who come to us are ignorant, but they are 
very anxious that their children should be educated, 
and these children show a zeal for knowledge not 


8 


inferior to that manifested by the children of native- 
born citizens. 

Nor is this all. The foreigner who comes here, 
as most of them do, in early manhood, begins to be 
educated the moment he lands upon our shores. 
He may never even learn to read and write, but he 
has the education of circumstances. He breathes a 
moral atmosphere which acts upon his mind with a 
quickening and fertilizing influence, like that of 
sunshine and dew upon the soil. He acquires prop¬ 
erty, he becomes a voter, he tastes the luxury of 
self-respect; he ceases to be a thing, and begins to 
be a person. His mind catches the contagious in¬ 
telligence by which he is surrounded, his bent spirit 
becomes erect, the expression of his countenance 
and the natural language of his person undergo a 
change. The Irish or German laborer who comes 
here at twenty-five is at fifty a very different being 
from the countryman whom he left at home. 

The progress of our country has made some 
change in the character and composition of the so- 
called educated classes. There was a time when the 
graduates of colleges comprised all, or very nearly 
all, the educated men of the land. Such is not the 
case now; and it would show equal ignorance and 
arrogance on the part of us who have had the ben¬ 
efit of college training, if we should set up any such 
exclusive claim to the honors or responsibilities of 
education. There are many learned and accom¬ 
plished men in our country, — good scholars, good 
writers, successful cultivators of science,— who are 



9 


not graduates of any college, of whom we may say, 
in the language of the inscription on the bust of 
Moliere, set up after his death by the French Acad¬ 
emy, that nothing is wanting to their glory, they 
are wanting to ours. But the colleges of the coun¬ 
try, especially those of New England, still send 
forth a large part of the men by whom the intellect¬ 
ual work of the country is done, and to whom the 
less-educated portion of the community must look 
for guidance and control. To obtain a college edu¬ 
cation is still an object of honorable ambition with 
our young men. To accomplish this, brave efforts 
are made, and touching sacrifices are endured. The 
colleges themselves partake of the flexibility and 
elasticity wdiich belong to our institutions and our 
people. It cannot be said of them, that they are 
like ships anchored in a stream, which serve to 
show the force of the current which sweeps by 
them by the amount of the resistance they offer. 
They obey, and must obey, the laws of supply and 
demand, and tender to the community such an edu¬ 
cation as it wants. 

And there is yet another change. We have now 
a considerable number of men of letters by profes¬ 
sion, who earn their bread by their pen, either as 
writers of books or editors of newspapers and maga¬ 
zines. This was not the case in the early periods of 
our history. Then the three so-called learned pro¬ 
fessions absorbed all the cultivation of the country, 
and whatever of literary faculty there was anywhere 
was to be found among them. The solitary instance 


10 


of Franklin is one of those exceptions which prove 
the rule. 

The men of letters by profession in our country, 
who are constantly on the increase, — who are nat¬ 
urally attracted to our large cities, and are thus 
gaining the advantage of concert and combination, — 
are exerting an important and a growing influence 
upon the politics of the country, or, more exactly, 
upon the public opinion which shapes our politics, 
and, in my judgment, an influence not altogether 
salutary. Indeed, I hold that an exclusively liter¬ 
ary training is not by any means the best prepara¬ 
tion for the comprehension or the discharge of the 
duties which lie in the sphere of government and 
politics. But this is a subject on which I do not 
now propose to touch. 

Earl Russell, in his memoir of Moore, remarks: 
“ There is, perhaps, in men of letters, a tendency to 
be dissatisfied with the political systems under which 
they live. Sir James Mackintosh used to observe, 
that the greatest authors of Athens were evidently 
averse to the rule of the democracy. In France, 
before the Revolution, the most brilliant writers 
were evidently hostile to the absolute monarchy 
under which they lived. In our own times, Southey 
and Coleridge began with democracy, Scott as a 
Jacobite, Moore as a disaffected Irish Catholic. The 
freedom of literary pursuits leads men to question 
the excellence of the ruling power; and thus des¬ 
potism and democracy alike find enemies among the 
highly gifted of those who live under their sway.” 



11 


There is a good deal of truth in these remarks; 
and we may see illustrations of them, at this mo¬ 
ment, in the two leading nations of Europe,— France 
and England. In both these countries, what Earl 
Russell calls u the freedom of literary pursuits ” pro¬ 
duces a certain discontent in men of letters, though 
not awakened by the same cause. France, by her 
great Revolution, has secured social equality, but 
she does not enjoy the blessing of political liberty.* 
This blessing England does possess; but we find 
there not social equality, but great social inequal¬ 
ity. Many of the noblest minds in France are 
openly or secretly hostile to the government, be¬ 
cause of the absence of political liberty; and in 
England, not a few of the men of letters and men 
of science chafe under a system which denies to 
them the social position to which they justly deem 
themselves entitled, and which is freely accorded to 
their brethren in France. 

It is a misfortune to a country if its men of letters, 
its cultivated men, are not in sympathy with its po¬ 
litical and social institutions. It has been a misfor¬ 
tune to France, that it has not for a century or more 
had a government which commanded the hearty 
support of its writers and thinkers. No government 
can afford to have the ill-will of the men who make 
the books which its people read. No such danger 
lies in our path. We have the political liberty of 

* Napoleon said at St. Helena that he had given equality to the 
French, and that this was all he could give them, but that his son would 
have given them liberty. Quoted in Lieber’s “ Civil Liberty and Self- 
Government,” p. 289. 



12 


England and the social equality of France ; and the 
cultivation and literature of the country are strongly 
and earnestly patriotic. Men of science and men of 
letters here breathe the invigorating air of free¬ 
dom, and enjoy what has been happily called “ the 
£>atronage of opportunity.” The relations here be¬ 
tween the educated classes and the community gen¬ 
erally are natural and true. 

This is a good, but not without its dangers. Where 
we love, we are tempted to praise, and praise is apt 
to degenerate into over-praise. It is poisonous to a 
human soul to breathe habitually the incense of 
flattery; and what is bad for the individual man is 
not good for a community of men. We learn much 
from our friends, but we also learn much from our 
enemies. No man, indeed, ever attains complete 
self-knowledge until he has had an enemy. If our 
people never hear the language of warning and 
reproof from their men of letters, they miss that 
which no people can miss without danger. In the 
Church of Rome, before a man is canonized, his claims 
to the honor are formally investigated, and a Devil’s 
attorney, so called, is appointed, whose business 
it is to pick flaws in the life and character of the 
proposed saint, and to show that he was no better 
than other men. It would do us no harm to listen 
sometimes to a functionary of this kind. In other 
words, it would do us no harm to give our ear to a 
writer who would have the courage and the frank¬ 
ness to tell us of our faults as a people, and point 
out the weak places in our institutions. As it is 


13 


now, we have a great deal of partisan criticism, — 
criticism of the creed and measures of the party 
opposed to our own. This is of very little value, 
because it is so virulent and so indiscriminate; and, 
besides, it feeds the passion of self-love, for the adu¬ 
lation of our side is exactly equal to the abuse of 
the other. But who has taken up the theme of De 
Tocqueville where he left it? Who has examined, 
in his calm and philosophic temper, the effect upon 
our institutions of our prodigious increase in wealth 
and population, and our enormous accessions of terri¬ 
tory, during the last thirty years ? We have foreign 
writers who worship democracy, and others who de¬ 
test it; we reprint and read the writings of the 
former, and we ignore the writings of the latter; 
but for edification and instruction both are of little 
value. What we want is the impartial summing up 
of the judge, and not the passionate harangue of the 
Advocate. 

' For, assuredly, the institutions of America, being 
human, are imperfect, and the people of America, 
being human, are imperfect also. Here, as every¬ 
where on earth, there are dangers to be avoided, 
temptations to be resisted, struggles to be endured, 
duties to be performed. The duties of men are in 
proportion to their opportunities, their capacities, 
and the sphere of their influence. If the relations 
here between educated men and society at large are 
just and sound, — if their lips are not silenced by 
the touch of despotic power, — if no false social dis¬ 
tinctions fret their spirit and curtail their power, — 


14 


it is all the more their duty to use their legitimate 
influence in the right direction. And in seeking to 
find what is the right direction, we must see whether 
there are in the government and institutions under 
which we live any defects to be supplied, any dan¬ 
gers to be guarded against, in regard to which the 
educated men can exert a power for good. 

Government, says Burke, is a contrivance of hu¬ 
man wisdom to provide for human wants. Being 
human, it is more or less imperfect; and being a con¬ 
trivance, it varies according to the wants and capa¬ 
cities of those for whom it is intended. The science 
of government is a progressive science, and an em¬ 
pirical science too; that is, it is a science in which 
all progress is the result of experiment. Mankind 
can here learn wisdom only through the punishment 
of folly; and all-important as government is, there 
is no department of knowledge in which men have 
been such unapt scholars. By toil and sorrow, 
through blood and tears alone, have they come to 
a perception of most of what are now the received 
axioms of government. The primary intuitions of 
the mind are here of very little value: they teach 
us what are the ends of government, but are silent 
as to the means by which these ends are to be at¬ 
tained. The absolute failure of so good and great 
a man as John Locke in his attempt to construct a 
constitution for Carolina is an instructive case in 
point. 

What are some of these received axioms, or ad¬ 
mitted truths, of government? One is, that all 


15 


simple governments are bad, or at least defective; 
meaning by simple governments those in which the 
whole power is lodged in the hands of one man, one 
class, or one body, without limitation or control. A 
pure monarchy, a pure aristocracy, or a pure democ¬ 
racy would be alike intolerable. 

It is the correlative of this axiom, that all good 
governments must be more or less complicated in 
their organization and mode of working. There 
must be contrivances, or adjustments, by which a 
force moving in one direction may, beyond a cer¬ 
tain point, be met and arrested by an opposite 
force. There is a beautiful illustration of this law 
in the governor, so called, of a steam-engine, by 
which the supply of steam is checked as the ve¬ 
locity is increased, and enlarged as the velocity is 
diminished; and in the machinery of good govern¬ 
ment an analogous arrangement is necessary. This 
is what is meant by a system of checks and bal¬ 
ances, which speculative politicians are apt to sneer 
at, if they do not deny their practical working. 
This arises from a confusion of the terms involved 
in the words opposite and contrary. Things oppo¬ 
site are complements to each other, and their action 
in different directions tends to produce a common 
result, compounded in greater or less proportions of 
the two : things contrary are essentially antago¬ 
nistic and self-destructive. The right hand and the 
left hand are opposites, but right and wrong are 
contraries* 

* Coleridge’s Works (Harper’s edition), Vol. VI. p. 38, note. 


16 


But in every form of government there is a pre¬ 
dominant force which, if pushed to its extreme, 
must overpower all resistance and absorb all the 
powers of the state. In Kussia, it is the power 
of the Emperor; in England, it resides in the land- 
owners of the country, directly represented in the 
House of Lords, and exerting a controlling influ¬ 
ence in the composition of the House of Commons; 
in this country, it is the will of the majority of the 
whole people. 

And in every government the natural tendency 
is for the dominant force to increase in power, by 
gradually gathering into its own hands the func¬ 
tions of other departments or portions. There is a 
moral as well as a material force of gravitation, and 
power exerts an attraction in proportion to its mass. 
Thus an absolute monarchy tends towards despot¬ 
ism, an aristocracy towards an oligarchy, and a de¬ 
mocracy towards an ochlocracy. 

And the experience of history shows that the 
strength and the danger of a government flow from 
the same source; in other words, that governments 
are liable to be destroyed or overturned by the ex¬ 
cess of the element or principle which they possess 
in the largest measure, and by which they are dis¬ 
tinguished from other forms. 

Thus, if we would have a good government, an 
enduring government, we must have an antago¬ 
nism of influences, a skilful adjustment of opposite 
tendencies, which, by their harmonious coaction, 
though seemingly diverse, shall, like the centripetal 


17 


and centrifugal forces in the solar system, insure at 
once stability and movement. In order to secure 
this result, it is necessary that the sovereign, be it 
one, a few, or many, should part with a portion of 
his or its power by an irrevocable grant; but if it 
be only lent, it will fare like other loans, and be 
reclaimed just at the moment when it is most incon¬ 
venient for the borrower to return it. 

In a good government, there must be a principle 
of permanence or order, and a principle of progress 
and reform.* There must be a propelling force, and 
a power to control and direct that force. And 
there are three elements, or factors, out of which 
these principles may be educed; and these are num¬ 
bers, property, and intelligence. Wherever any one 
of these three is deprived of influence, the govern¬ 
ment is defective ; and the state in which all the 
three act harmoniously, each within its legitimate 
sphere, is sure to be prosperous and well governed. 
Most of the revolutions in states may be traced to 
combinations of two of these against the third. 
The French Revolution of 1789 was a combina¬ 
tion of numbers and intelligence against property. 
Louis Napoleon was raised to the throne by a 
combination of intelligence and property against 
numbers. 

The element of permanence in a state is usually 
secured by natural means. In England, according 
to Coleridge,j~ it is provided for by a representation 

* Coleridge’s Works (Harper’s edition), Vol. VI. p. 38. 

f See the second chapter of his essay “ On the Constitution of the 
Church and State.” 


2 


18 


of landed proprietors, and the interest of progres¬ 
sion by a representation of personal property and 
of intellectual acquirement. In our country, prop¬ 
erty, whether landed or personal, has no representa¬ 
tion or direct influence; and we gain the element of 
permanence by moral or artificial contrivances, and 
especially in the provisions of an organic law called 
a constitution. The object of a constitution is to 
protect the minority against the majority; and the 
essence of a constitution is a distribution of the 
powers of sovereignty, and a surrender of a portion 
of them by grants not absolutely irrevocable, but 
approximately so. For instance, the Constitutions 
of the several States, and that of the United States 
also, give to the executive the power of preventing, 
or at least arresting for a time, the passage of a 
law. This is a delegation of a portion of sover¬ 
eignty to a single functionary, and the grant is 
made in support of the principle of permanency. 

So the system of governing by representatives is 
a concession to the principle of permanency, and a 
tacit admission of the imperfections of a pure de¬ 
mocracy. It is, indeed, the insertion of an aristo¬ 
cratic graft into the trunk of democracy. For the 
aim of a representative government is to combine 
the force of the many and the wisdom of the few; 
and unless the representatives chosen are wiser 
than their constituents, and at least as good, the 
system fails to accomplish all the good intended. 

In our country, we have representative govern¬ 
ment and written Constitutions, alike for the several 


19 


States and for the United States; but neither of 
these is peculiar to our country. But the political 
element which is peculiar to it, that wherein it dif¬ 
fers from all other communities, past or present, 
consists in the fact that here every citizen is the 
subject of two sovereignties, that of the State and 
that of the general government. Whatever may 
have been thought of this proposition before, there 
is no question about it now. For the civil war we 
have just passed through was waged to determine 
what was the relation between the general govern¬ 
ment and the subject, whether it was mediate or 
immediate, primary or secondary. It was the con¬ 
federacy, and not democracy, that was on trial. 
The war might have happened had each State been 
a monarchy or an aristocracy. 

Written constitutions and the system of repre¬ 
sentation distinguish modern democracy from an¬ 
cient democracy, but these are not the only differ¬ 
ences. The force of public opinion, so powerful 
in modern European society and so omnipotent 
with us, was hardly known in antiquity. We can 
trace, for instance, considerable analogy between 
the present government of France and the govern¬ 
ment of Rome under the Emperors. Both are dem¬ 
ocratic despotisms, in which the whole power is 
lodged in the hands of one man, before whom all 
his subjects are alike. Tyranny is submitted to for 
the sake of equality. It is an Egyptian landscape,— 
a pyramid resting upon a level plain. But the Em¬ 
peror of the French is controlled by a prodigious 


20 


force of public opinion, a power unknown in Rome, 
the absence of which alone can explain the cruelties 
and atrocities which stain the annals of the Roman 
Empire, but which would be absolutely impossible 
in a country like France. An Emperor of the 
French might have the extremest temper of a 
tyrant, but in the indulgence of that temper he 
would be everywhere confronted by a power, 
silent, penetrating, irresistible, which he could no 
more overcome than he could overcome the laws of 
gravitation in his own person. 

As public opinion forms a marked distinction be¬ 
tween ancient and modern democracies, so it distin¬ 
guishes to-day Oriental and Occidental civilization. 
In the East, public opinion is hardly known as a 
controlling or restraining force. There everything 
is under the dominion of custom, running back to 
an immemorial past, hallowed by the associations 
and guarded by the sanctions of religion. It is an 
awful, an inexorable power, before which the tyrant 
trembles, and to which the slave can appeal for 
shelter and protection. 

America is the country in which the distinguish¬ 
ing characteristics of Western civilization are most 
strongly observed, and here public opinion acts with 
a power unknown elsewhere. It is the animating 
principle of our government. It is to laws and con¬ 
stitutions what steam is to the steam-engine: it is 
the motive-power without which the machinery of 
government could not go on. A law without pub¬ 
lic opinion to enforce it is but a painted dragon or 
a fort manned with wooden cannon. 


21 


Outside, too, of the sphere of politics, public 
opinion is an agent of prodigious force. It is a 
social as well as a political dictator. It prescribes 
what we shall think, or, at least, what we shall 
speak. It regulates our customs, our amusements, 
the furniture of our houses, the fashion of our gar¬ 
ments, the education of our children. It is a tribu¬ 
nal from the judgments of which there is no appeal. 
It produces a dreary uniformity in sentiment and 
speech. In the armory at Springfield guns are 
made interchangeably, so that a hundred may be 
taken to pieces and thrown into a heap, and the 
parts put together again at random. This is an 
excellent thing in guns, but not in men and women; 
but the tyranny of public opinion tends to make 
human beings on this same monotonous pattern. 
If we want freshness and individuality, we must 
seek them in those eccentric minds whose diver¬ 
gent force has caused them to shoot madly from 
the sphere of social life, and boldly unfurl the flag 
of rebellion against its authority. 

This public opinion is the resultant of several 
factors. It supposes a generally diffused intelli¬ 
gence, a population more or less compact, publicity 
in the proceedings of government, an unfettered 
press, and, to a certain extent, social equality. All 
these elements, it is to be observed, may exist un¬ 
der monarchical forms. The democracy towards 
which, in the judgment of De Tocqueville, Europe 
is tending, consists in that equality of condition 
which offers no resistance to the sweep of public 


22 


opinion. That democratic ideas are making pro¬ 
gress there is an obvious fact, but whether they are 
to act through democratic or monarchical forms is 
a problem not yet solved. 

One obvious duty of the educated classes here, 
growing out of this ubiquitous and oppressive pub¬ 
lic opinion, is a duty to themselves; it is to protect 
their own individuality against unlawful encroach¬ 
ment and unwarrantable interference. We are sac¬ 
rificing man to society; we accomplish everything 
by united action; nowhere is there such power of 
combination and organization as in our country; no¬ 
where are men so easily built into social structures, 
permanent or temporary. But we gain these advan¬ 
tages at some sacrifice of individual power and indi¬ 
vidual character. We are chipped and chiselled into 
uniformity. We become like bricks in a wall, or 
marbles in a bag. Society has no right to push its 
exactions beyond a certain point. Every human 
being is what the old philosophers called an ens anto- 
teles , with a self-contained law of growth, involving 
its own end and object; and society has no right to 
abrogate this law. The duty of self-development, 
in obedience to this law, is of universal obliga¬ 
tion, and to secure this self-development the ele¬ 
ments of freedom and variety are requisite. If 
society acts in such a way as to check intellectual 
growth, and repress the expansion of individuality, 
it usurps a power to which it has no title, and 
wields it to the destruction of one of the most 
important objects for which it was organized. For, 


23 


surely, one of the chief ends of civil society is to 
secure to every human soul the conditions most 
favorable to expansion and development. The Amer¬ 
ican scholar has a duty to himself. He is bound to 
observe his own law of growth, to respect the sanc¬ 
tuary of his own inner nature, to guard it from un¬ 
authorized intrusion, to draw from the elements 
around him the sap of a vigorous individuality. I 
am aware of the limitations of the rule. I am 
aware of the danger of self-assertion on the one 
side, and of a sort of refined selfishness on the other; 
but surely a scholar may be true to himself without 
degenerating either into an intellectual bully or an 
intellectual voluptuary. 

And, furthermore, it is the duty of the educated 
classes to contribute their fair share to the formation 
of public opinion, and their fair share is a prepon¬ 
derant share. Knowledge and intelligence are, and 
ever must be, controlling forces in civil society, and 
their influence is in proportion to the justice of the 
principles on which civil society is organized. And 
the American people recognize this truth ; and they 
are ready to accept the guidance of knowledge and 
intelligence, when tendered in a disinterested spirit, 
and with no offensive assumption of superiority. If 
it be true, as has been often said, that the political 
influence of cultivated and accomplished men is on 
the decline in our country, it is in no small measure 
their own fault. It is because they are too fond of 
their ease, too fastidious in their tastes, too sen¬ 
sitively shrinking from the dust and heat of con- 


24 


flict, too much devoted to the accumulation of prop¬ 
erty. The wonderful material prosperity of our 
country has been a conservative element in our 
politics, but it is not an unmixed good; for by 
reason of it, our educated men are tempted to for¬ 
sake the pursuit of knowledge, and devote them¬ 
selves to the pursuit of wealth. It is especially 
difficult for a scholar, living in one of our large 
cities, to resist the contagion of the influences 
around him, and not set an undue value upon 
wealth, and the luxury which wealth commands,— 
a luxury which contributes neither to the health 
of the soul nor the growth of the mind. It is to 
me a melancholy spectacle to see a young man, who 
leaves college thickly starred with the blossoms of 
promise, diverted from the race of truth by the 
golden apples of wealth, and starving his mind to 
pamper his estate. 

And to spirits of a finer mould and higher temper 
the temptation comes in another form. The game 
of politics seems so coarse, the players so ignoble, 
the stakes so worthless, that the inclination to take 
no part in it seems to be approved by the conscience 
as well as commended by the taste. 

“ Were it not better done, as others use, 

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 

Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair.” 

Learning has its shady cloisters, its trim gardens, its 
murmuring fountains; and to these the scholar is 
fain to repair, and breathe “ the still air of delight¬ 
ful studies.” “In the silence of retirement nothing 


25 


seems more melancholy than the spirit of the 
world.” But it is genius alone that can claim this 
privilege of seclusion. “A fugitive and cloistered 
virtue,” as Milton calls it, is neither to be commend¬ 
ed nor imitated. Weakness is weakness still, though 
decorated and attended by all the graces. The duty 
of the American scholar, the Christian scholar, is, as 
Bacon says, “ to give a true account of his gift of 
reason, to the benefit and use of man”; and this 
cannot be done either by withdrawing from the 
world, or by mingling with it merely to win its 
prizes. 

The scholar has two instruments to work with, — 
the tongue and the pen; and public opinion is the 
product of the tongue and the pen. A sound pub¬ 
lic opinion is created by writing or speaking the 
proper word at the proper time. And when the 
moment comes for this duty to be discharged, there 
may be a hand that holds back, a voice that cries, 
Forbear ! It may be indolence and love of ease that 
thus prompts, — it may be timidity, it may be selfish¬ 
ness; but come from where it may, the scholar is 
untrue to himself if he do not refuse to listen to the 
ignoble suggestion. 

But the educated classes should not merely con¬ 
tribute, actively and constantly, to the formation of 
a sound public opinion, but they should be prepared 
to resist aq unsound public opinion. This is a graver 
duty than the former, exacting a higher mood of self- 
sacrifice, but it cannot be put aside. For assuredly 
no one will maintain that public opinion is always 


26 


right, no one will deny that it is’ sometimes mani¬ 
festly wrong, unwise in its direction, unjust in its 
judgments, cruel as the sea, pitiless as death ;* and 
if so, it is unquestionably the duty of somebody to 
confront it, and, if necessary, to brave its utmost 
wrath. And if in our country the educated men 
decline this trust, it will not be discharged at all; 
and if this be so,— if every storm of popular frenzy 
is allowed to howl itself to rest unchecked, if the 
people are to learn wisdom only by the view, in 
their sober hours, of the mischief they have done 
in their paroxysms of violence, — then we have an 
element of danger in our future against which writ¬ 
ten laws, organic or municipal, afford a very inade¬ 
quate protection. I am aware that it is no light 
matter to oppose public opinion when it is wrong 
in its direction and headlong in its violence, — that 
it requires calm, deliberate courage, the Dorian mood 
of the soul, — but duty would not be duty were it 
light; and some of the grandest figures in history 
are those who, under popular governments, have 
dared to speak unwelcome truths at critical periods, 
and, rooted in stern self-reliance, have confronted 
the rage of popular violence as the mountain pine 
confronts the mountain storm. Such was Socrates 
in Athens; such was Petigru in South Carolina. 

In every justly organized civil society, the more 
educated and intelligent minority have a right to 
lead the less educated and intelligent majority; and 
if the former only follow, the relation between them 
is a false and dangerous relation. Let me fortify 


27 


this statement by the authority of John Stuart Mill, 
a writer who is in warm sympathy with democracy, 
and held in high esteem by that party in our coun¬ 
try which represents the principle of progression. 
“ No government,” says he, “ by a democracy or a 
numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts or 
in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which 
it fosters, ever did or could arise above mediocrity, 
except in so far as the sovereign many have let 
themselves be guided (which in their best time they 
always have done) by the counsels and influence of 
a more highly gifted and instructed one or few.” * 
There is a passage in Bacon’s “ Advancement of 
Learning” which well illustrates the difference be¬ 
tween the few and the many. “ We shall find the logi¬ 
cal part, as I may term it, of some men’s minds good, 
but the mathematical part erroneous, that is, they 
can judge well of consequences, but not of propor¬ 
tions and comparisons.” The people are generally 
good in the logical part, but in the mathematical 
part they are apt to be erroneous; in other words, 
the ends they aim at are right, but they often take 
the wrong road, and thus fail to reach them. The 
moral instincts of the people are always sound, and 
great masses of men are never greatly moved by 
impulses wholly ignoble. How admirably the peo¬ 
ple of this country have borne themselves during 
the last five years ! Who can look back upon what 
"they have done, and what they have suffered, with¬ 
out a proud swelling of the heart, without feeling 

* “ On Liberty,” p. 128 (American edition). 


28 


that man is a noble creature, whose very passions 
are touched with splendid lights, whose weaknesses 
deserve tenderness and pity, and not the cynic’s 
frown or the scoffer’s sneer ? 

That the few should lead the many is enforced by 
the consideration that, in point of fact, the few do 
lead the many. In democratic communities the 
tendency always is for power to steal from the 
many to the few, and it is a tendency which in¬ 
creases with increase of numbers. It may be laid 
down as a general law, that, the larger the body, the 
smaller is the number of those by whom it is con¬ 
trolled. A legislature of four hundred is managed 
by fewer persons than a legislature of one hundred. 
You need not be told how small is the number of 
the men who transact the business of the House of 
Commons. I have very little doubt that the poli¬ 
tics of the State of New York are managed by 
fewer persons than the politics of the State of Ver¬ 
mont. Discipline and subordination are, and must 
be, in proportion to numbers. When we come to 
an army, the will of one man, the commander-in¬ 
chief, is supreme. 

This tendency of power to steal from the many 
to the few may be illustrated by what is otherwise 
a noteworthy fact in the constitutional history of 
the country; I mean the change in the mode of 
electing the President of the United States. By 
the Constitution, as you are aware, the choice was 
devolved upon a select body of unbiassed electors, 
who were to meet, deliberate, and decide. One must 


29 


needs smile or sigh, according to his temperament, 
when he reads the considerations urged by Hamil¬ 
ton in the “ Federalist” * in support of this plan. 
“ A small number of persons, selected by their fellow- 
citizens from the general mass, will be most likely 
to possess the information and discernment requisite 
to so complicated an investigation. It was also par¬ 
ticularly desirable to afford as little opportunity as 

possible to tumult and disorder.The choice 

of several to form an intermediate body of electors 
will be much less apt to convulse the community 
with any extraordinary or violent movements than 
the choice of one, who was to be himself the final 

object of the public wishes.Nothing was more 

to be desired than that every practicable obstacle 
should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corrup¬ 
tion.” Such is the theory; but in fact the Presi¬ 
dent of the United States is chosen by a caucus, 
which is nothing more or less than an irresponsible 
mob, assembled under conditions certainly unfavor¬ 
able to deliberation, and as certainly not unfavorable 
either to “ tumult and disorder,” or to “ cabal, in¬ 
trigue, and corruption.” The people have but a 
negative choice in the matter, something like a 
woman’s choice in the matter of a husband. 

But the practical effect of the change has been 
to devolve the election of President upon a very 
small number of persons; for a caucus cannot de¬ 
liberate, since, in the first place, it is too large a 
body, and, in the second place, the members remain 
* Chapter LVIII. 



30 


together too short a time. It can only make up 
the work previously cut out for it by a few party 
leaders. And as the matter now stands, the electors 
of the President are simply committees to execute 
the decrees of a caucus, which caucus is but a com¬ 
mittee to execute the decrees of a few political 
managers, who accomplish the result, but, being un¬ 
known, escape all responsibility for their acts. 

In considering the direction which should be 
given to public opinion, we must take into account 
the political institutions of the country, and see 
where they need to be strengthened and where 
they may be left to take care of themselves. Pope 
has said, in a frequently quoted couplet : 

“ For forms of government let fools contest, 

That which is best administered is best.” 

This is one of those paste jewels of literature which 
pass current for real gems because of their superfi¬ 
cial glitter. It has a specious sound, but the objec¬ 
tion to it is that it is false in principle. Forms 
of government are of great importance, and in 
their capacity to produce happiness and well-being 
they differ as widely as individual monarchs in his¬ 
tory differ in character and genius. The forms of 
government may be likened to the machinery of a 
factory, and the force which administers a govern¬ 
ment to the power which sets the machinery in mo¬ 
tion. No engineer is any the less careful about his 
machinery because he has all the power that he 
wants. The advantage of good forms of government 




31 


is, that they generate their own motive-power; in 
other words, they create the virtue and intelligence 
which insure good administration. It is the rela¬ 
tion between the tree and the fountain at its foot: 
the tree protects the fountain from the sun, and the 
grateful fountain keeps the tree green by its shel¬ 
tered waters.* 

When we look at the forms of government here, 
we must distinguish between the characteristics of 
a democracy and the characteristics of a confed¬ 
eracy; and in considering the dangers of democra¬ 
cy, we must discriminate between those which are 
and those which are not peculiar to that form. 
Many of the objections urged by speculative writers 
against democratic governments amount to no more 
than this, that they do not insure a complete pro¬ 
tection against the vices of bad men and the imper¬ 
fections of imperfect men, against ambition, corrup¬ 
tion, selfishness, and folly. This is true, but it is 
equally true of aristocracies and monarchies. It is 
but a truism to say that nations flourish by observ¬ 
ance of the moral law, and that they decline and 
fall through violations of the moral law. This was 
true alike of democratic Athens and aristocratic 
Sparta. The advantages we claim for democracy 
are, that it is the form most likely to insure vir¬ 
tue and intelligence in the conduct of government, 

* “ For know, an honest statesman to a prince 
Is like a cedar planted by a spring; 

The spring bathes the tree’s root, the grateful tree 
Rewards it with its shadow.” 

Webster’s “ Duchess of Malfi” Act III. Scene 2. 


32 


and that, by the constitutional vigor it creates, it 
enables a people soonest to repair the consequences 
of mistakes in government. 

But there are evils and dangers peculiar to de¬ 
mocracies, and there are conditions essential to the 
continuance and prosperity of a democratic confed¬ 
eracy. What ; then, are the duties of the educated 
classes growing out of the two facts of a democracy 
and a confederacy ? Let me answer this question 
in part by quoting another passage from John Stu¬ 
art Mill: “ The commonplaces of politics in France 
are large and sweeping practical maxims, from 
which, as ultimate premises, men reason downwards 
to particular applications, and this they call being 
logical and consistent. For instance, they are per¬ 
petually arguing that such and such a measure 
ought to be adopted, because it is a consequence of 
the principle on which the form of government is 
founded, — of the principle of legitimacy, or the 
principle of the sovereignty of the people. To 
which it may be answered, that, if these be really 
practical principles, they must rest upon speculative 
grounds: the sovereignty of the people (for exam¬ 
ple) must be a right foundation for government, 
because a government thus constituted tends to pro¬ 
duce certain beneficial effects. Inasmuch, however, 
as no government produces all possible beneficial 
effects, but all are attended with more or fewer 
inconveniences, and since these cannot be combated 
by means drawn from the very causes which produce 
them, it would be often a much stronger recommen- 




33 


dation of some practical arrangement, that it does 
not follow from what is called the general principle 
of the government, than that it does. Under a 
government of legitimacy, the presumption is far 
rather in favor of institutions of a popular origin, 
and in a democracy, in favor of arrangements tend¬ 
ing to check the impetus of popular will. The line 
of argumentation so commonly mistaken in France 
for political philosophy tends to the practical con¬ 
clusion, that we should exert our utmost efforts to 
aggravate, instead of alleviating, whatever are the 
characteristic imperfections of the system of insti¬ 
tutions which we prefer, or under which we happen 
to live.” * 

This admirable passage covers the whole ground. 
Let us apply to our own institutions the lesson it 
teaches. In a democracy, the sovereignty, residing 
with a majority of the whole people, is by a natural 
law of political growth likely to be constantly on 
the increase. This increase beyond a certain point 
is unwise and undesirable, and at this point it 
should be met and resisted, and the only power 
which can resist it is a moral power proceeding 
from the educated classes. In other words, it is 
the duty of the educated classes to give their hand 
to a arrangements tending to check the impetus 
of popular will.” By such a course, temporary or 
even lasting unpopularity is insured, and the re¬ 
proach is incurred of want of patriotism or want 
of loyalty. Disloyalty in politics answers to het- 

* “ System of Logic,” Vol. II. p. 524, 4th (English) edition. 

3 


34 


erodoxy in religion: it is simply the name we give 
to another man’s opinions. But the men who are 
willing to incur this reproach are the very salt that 
keep democratic institutions from decay. A tyrant 
majority is just as much to be opposed when it is 
wrong, as a single despot, and when a man conscien¬ 
tiously believes that the majority is wrong, it is his 
duty to oppose it, within legal and constitutional 
limits, always. When we have established a state 
of society in which a man, believing the majority 
to be in the wrong, does not dare to say so, we 
have made the master and his slave; only the 
master is many and the slave is one. 

The course of our own political history illustrates 
the natural tendency of the dominant power in a 
state to enlargement and increase. With us the 
powers of sovereignty are distributed by a constitu¬ 
tion, or body of organic laws, the ultimate object 
of which, as has been before said, is to protect the 
minority against the majority. But every well- 
organized state should also make provision for pro¬ 
tecting the subject against the sovereign, which is 
here the one against the many. This is done by 
means of the judiciary, and it is only effectually 
done by means of an independent judiciary. An 
independent judiciary is quite as important in a 
democracy as in a monarchy. Mr. Jefferson, speak¬ 
ing on this subject, says: “In England, where 
judges were named and removable at the will of an 
hereditary executive, from which branch most mis¬ 
rule was feared, and has flowed, it was a great point 




35 


gained by fixing them for life, to make them inde¬ 
pendent of the executive. But in a government 
founded on the public will, the plan operates in an 
opposite direction, and against that will.” But this 
assumes that the public will is always right, and this 
is not true. We may admit that the public will is 
generally right, but we must provide for those ex¬ 
ceptional cases where it is wrong. 

The Constitutions of the older States have been 
in existence for many years, and they have been 
frequently amended. But the course of amend¬ 
ment has run in the wrong direction. The power 
of the majority has been on the increase, and the 
safeguards and protections of the minority are 
diminishing. The people are reclaiming powers 
which they once surrendered. They are electing 
officers whom they once allowed the executive to 
appoint. And, above all, they are making the judi¬ 
ciary dependent on the popular will, by choosing or 
appointing the judges for a term of years, instead 
of during good behavior. Massachusetts is now, I 
believe, the only State that enjoys the blessing of 
an independent judiciary. I fear the bar is in part 
responsible for this state of things, either by pro¬ 
moting the change or silently acquiescing in it; if 
so, this is a case wherein an educated class has been 
false to its trust. 

Let us consider some of the duties of the edu¬ 
cated classes in connection with the general govern¬ 
ment of which we form a part. The Constitution 
of the United States, involving, as it does, both 


36 


national and federal elements, is the last and high¬ 
est result of political science. It is the most com¬ 
plicated and the most delicate piece of machinery 
ever devised for the administration of human af¬ 
fairs, and political machinery must be complicated 
and delicate in order to produce the best results. 
Herein there is an analogy between things organic 
and things inorganic, between growth and manufac¬ 
ture. The human body, the perfection of animated 
nature, has the greatest variety of parts and the 
greatest number of independent actions; and on 
the other hand, the human body is liable to more 
diseases than inferior types. So, too, the higher the 
order, the more diversity in the individuals com¬ 
posing it. Niebuhr lays down this law in political 
science, that u as in organic beings the most perfect 
life is that which animates the greatest variety of 
numbers, so, among states, that is the most perfect 
in which a number of institutions originally dis¬ 
tinct, being organized, each after its kind, into 
centres of national life, form a complete whole.” 

The problem given to our fathers to solve was to 
combine the two elements of unity and plurality, 
to secure national life without sacrificing organic life 
in the separate parts. They had probably never 
read Pascal, but they might have found in his writ¬ 
ings a condensed and striking passage for their guid¬ 
ance and illumination: “ Plurality which does not 
reduce itself to unity is confusion; unity which is 
not the result of plurality is tyranny.” What they 
proposed to do was to avoid both central tyranny 




37 


and diverging confusion; and wonderful were the 
wisdom and the faculty they displayed, and marvel¬ 
lous was the work of their hands! We who have 
always lived under the Union, to whom its bless¬ 
ings have been like those of air and light, can 
hardly comprehend how slow and difficult a task 
the formation of the Union was, — how much of 
prejudice and apathy was to be overcome before 
the elements of divergence and disintegration could 
be brought together, and animated and assimilated 
by the life-blood of a vigorous national sentiment. 

The political and constitutional history of the 
country is the record of the struggle between the 
two principles of unity and plurality, embodied in 
parties which sought, one to strengthen the hands 
of the general government, and one to maintain 
the rights of the States. Each of these parties was 
right to a certain extent; each held a portion of the 
truth. In the early period of our history a majority 
of the educated and intelligent men of the country 
were found in the Federal party, and there they 
ought to have been found, because that party rep¬ 
resented the principle of unity and consolidation; 
and that was the principle that needed to be 
strengthened and upheld. The opposite party was 
right in its doctrine, that the general government 
should not usurp the powers of the States, but it 
was unreasonable in its apprehensions and unseason¬ 
able in its teachings. Its warnings and appeals were 
like the sermon heard by a traveller in the High¬ 
lands of Scotland on the evils of luxury, addressed 


38 


to a congregation the majority of whom were with¬ 
out shoes and stockings. 

The recent civil war was an armed contest be¬ 
tween the two principles above named, which had 
been so long struggling with peaceful weapons with¬ 
in the bounds of the Constitution. It is the law of 
all civil wars that the principle or element which 
prevails gains greatly in strength by the mere fact 
of its having prevailed. This law we cannot escape. 
The result of the war we have passed through has 
been to increase the powers of the general govern¬ 
ment, and to enlarge the prerogatives of the exec¬ 
utive. The current now is turned in a direction 
opposite to that in which it once ran, and the dan¬ 
ger is that local self-government and individual 
liberty will be sacrificed to the central power; and 
where the danger lies, there too lie the duties of 
the educated classes. They should always be found 
on that part of the wall where the defences are 
weakest. 

Surely no one will question that local self-govern¬ 
ment, within its legitimate sphere, is of the greatest 
importance to the happiness and prosperity of the 
country. It has, indeed, been our chief glory, that 
we have made a powerful central government, and 
yet maintained unimpaired the precious principle of 
local self-government. Dante saw in the highest 
circle of Paradise the saintly multitude disposed in 
the shape of a vast and snowy rose ; but the mighty 
and magnificent flower was vital in every part, and 
each petal was a glorified human form, in robes of 




39 


celestial light. Such a bright, consummate flower 
is this fair state of ours, rearing aloft its imperial 
beauty, ever unfolding its glories, diffusing far and 
wide the fragrance of liberty, but with organic, 
independent life in every part, so that aggregate 
symmetry is not gained at the expense of individ¬ 
ual energy. 

You may think me an alarmist, or a croaker, for 
saying that there is any danger here to individual 
liberty, or, more exactly, civil liberty; but in saying 
this I have spoken my sincere thought. I believe 
that a true and consistent love of liberty is by no 
means a general feeling, even in communities avow¬ 
edly free, and that it is only found in nations which 
have learned the value of liberty from having once 
lost and then regained it. Indeed, we never learn 
the full worth of anything till we see it relieved 
against the dark background of its contrary. Sick¬ 
ness teaches us the sweetness of health, darkness the 
beauty of light; it is the cold of winter that makes 
us feel so gratefully the balm and bounty of sum¬ 
mer. We talk a great deal about liberty, but we 
mean by it the liberty of saying what we think 
and doing what we will; but when we are asked to 
give the same right to those whose spirit moves 
them to act and speak in opposition to ourselves, 
we pause and hesitate. Or we grant liberty in non- 
essentials, but deny it in essentials. So there is a bas¬ 
tard toleration which is simply indifference; but true 
toleration is to have earnest convictions, and at the 
same time to respect the intellectual rights of those 


40 


who have equally earnest convictions, opposed to 
our own; and this is one of the rarest virtues in 
humanity. Most men love power more than lib¬ 
erty* The passion for political power is the ruling 
passion in the human breast. It burns, an open or 
a secret flame, in the hearts of most men and not a 
few women. And there is no more dangerous foe 
to liberty than a passion for political power, unre¬ 
strained by the moral checks which should regulate 
and control its exercise. 

In the neighboring republic of Mexico we have 
seen civil society falling to pieces like a wall daubed 
with untempered mortar. Against a fate like this 
we are secured by our generally diffused intelli¬ 
gence and property, as well as by our instinctive 
respect for law. But I think there is danger that 
the rights of the individual will be sacrificed to the 
claims of civil society, or rather to the will of the 
majority putting forth that pretext. We must re¬ 
member that liberty is never assailed wantonly, and 
without some specious ground. Men are never asked 
to surrender their rights, unless something is offered 
in exchange. And the institutions which secure and 
protect civil liberty are often inconvenient. They 
stand in the way of power. They compel it to 
travel by the high road of prescription, and forbid 
the short cuts that despotism loves. Liberty throws 
up redoubts, and draws lines of circumvallation; it 
has its walled cities, its fortresses and strongholds. 

* “ So much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than 
power.” — Mill on Liberty , p. 203. 






41 


These check the progress of power, and compel it 
to treat and parley. These defences of liberty are 
apt to be abandoned when they are most wanted. 
But the sovereign, whether one or many, is reluc¬ 
tant to return rights which have been once given 
up, and the habit of easy surrender makes us under¬ 
value what we so readily part with. 

The present condition of France is not without 
instruction and warning for us. We see there great 
material prosperity, a very brilliant civilization,— 
in some respects the highest in the world, — a con¬ 
trolling influence in the politics of Europe, renown 
in arms, the successful cultivation of science, litera¬ 
ture, and the arts, a vigilant police, a judicious 
administration; but we do not see civil liberty. 
We see a muzzled press and a restrained legislature. 
How comes this ? Is France groaning under a des¬ 
potism imposed upon her by some power, foreign or 
domestic, too great to be resisted ? By no means. 
The government of France is sustained by the pub¬ 
lic sentiment of France, be this right or wrong. 
The Emperor was called to the throne by the votes 
of an immense majority of the whole people; and 
the same result would occur to-morrow were the 
question offered to them anew. And the explana¬ 
tion may be found in the first sentence of the Re¬ 
port of the French Senatorial Committee on the 
petitions to change the republic into an empire: 
“ France, attentive and excited, now demands from 
you a great political act, to put an end to her anxi¬ 
eties, and to secure her future.” France, weary 


42 


of changes, disorders, and revolutions, — weary of 
phrase-makers and constitution-makers, weary of 
good men who were not wise, and wise men who 
were not good, — gave up liberty for security, and 
sought repose under the shelter of organized and 
regulated despotism. Men will always sacrifice lib¬ 
erty for security, if one or the other must be re¬ 
nounced. But it is a melancholy alternative to be 
called to give up either the one or the other. 

I alluded a few moments since to the early history 
of our country: let me return to the subject. Never 
were the duties which society demands of its edu¬ 
cated men more faithfully and conscientiously dis¬ 
charged than by the educated men of the Revolu¬ 
tion and the period immediately succeeding it. We 
owe to them, not merely the formation, but the adop¬ 
tion of the Constitution to which, when first laid 
before them, a majority of the whole people were 
probably hostile, or at least indifferent. In the im¬ 
portant States of Massachusetts, Virginia, and New 
York, the opposition was especially strong. But the 
friends of the Constitution were found in that class 
of men upon whom the community had been accus¬ 
tomed to lean, and who had earned the confidence 
of the people by patriotic and disinterested service 
during the war. The members of the three learned 
professions, the officers of the army, the large land- 
owners, and the leading merchants were, as a 
general rule, its strong supporters; and they ad¬ 
dressed themselves to the task of convincing and 
enlightening the public mind, in the spirit of the 




43 


most generous, comprehensive, and self-sacrificing 
patriotism. Three young lawyers prepared the 
series of papers now known as “The Federalist” 
These essays, written and sent to the press almost 
as rapidly as the leading articles in a daily news¬ 
paper, form a work unrivalled for its combination 
of sound thinking and good writing; of which 
Guizot has said, that, in the application of the ele¬ 
mentary principles of government to practical ad¬ 
ministration, it was the greatest work known to 
him. But the authors of “The Federalist” were 
only the most conspicuous actors in a band where 
all were active. The educated and intelligent men 
of the country, with few exceptions, moved in the 
same direction, and were animated by the same 
spirit. Everywhere, by tongue and pen, by per¬ 
sonal influence, by authority and example, they 
sought to overcome the prejudices and rouse the 
apathy of the people. Happily the country was as 
yet but little divided by the dikes and fences of 
party; and the delegates chosen to the conventions 
called to pass upon the Constitution were men who 
had secured the confidence of their constituents by 
their personal qualities. In these conventions the 
Constitution was discussed, article by article, clause 
by clause, patiently and deliberately; all the objec¬ 
tions urged against it were calmly considered and 
replied to; the tone of the debates was grave and 
high, guided by the spirit of conscientious inquiry 
and an earnest desire to arrive at the truth. The 
adoption of the Constitution may, without rhetori- 


44 


cal exaggeration, be said to have been the triumph 
of the reason and the conscience of the country 
over its passions and its prejudices ; and it was due 
to the fact that the people were guided by their 
natural leaders, and that these leaders were as pure 
and wise a body of men as ever, in any age or coun¬ 
try, were called upon to lay the foundations of a 
commonwealth. 

Allow me, in conclusion, to restate the main doc¬ 
trine of my discourse, which is, that in every form 
of government there should be an element, a force, 
capable of resisting the characteristic principle or 
principles of such government when pushed be¬ 
yond a certain point, — which may remain dormant 
in ordinary cases, but must be prepared to act in 
extraordinary emergencies, — and that, under our 
institutions, this element or force can only be found 
in the voluntary action of the intelligent and edu¬ 
cated classes. It may be urged, that it is the duty 
of our educated men to give a hearty support to 
the institutions of their country, and that without 
such support the best institutions will fail to accom¬ 
plish their end. I grant this in the largest measure, 
and all will be well if the institutions of the coun¬ 
try are respected and preserved. The danger is, 
that these institutions may be sacrificed to the des¬ 
potism of the majority. But there are certain ten¬ 
dencies, certain results, which may always be taken 
for granted. The material forces of the engineer 
are not more sure than the moral forces of the 
statesman. There is no danger that there will not 



45 


be always found educated men enough here to obey 
the will of the majority, and to strengthen the 
hand of government where it is strongest and 
needs no strengthening: some will do this from 
conviction, some from timidity, some from self- 
interest. 

In the code of morals laid down in the New Tes¬ 
tament there is nothing said about patriotism, and 
yet patriotism is a virtue, and an important virtue; 
but the reason of the omission was, that here the 
natural instincts of humanity might alone be 
trusted. So there is no need of urging men to 
range themselves on the side of power, for there 
they will be led by the strong attraction of selfish¬ 
ness; and selfishness is always the rule, and disin¬ 
terestedness is always the exception. A despotic 
sovereign will never lack courtiers, and a despotic 
democracy will never lack demagogues. Indeed, 
the demagogue is but the courtier turned upside 
down. They are both idolaters, only the one wor¬ 
ships an idol with one head, and the other an idol 
with many heads. I need not remind the scholars 
who hear me that this analogy is as old as Aristotle. 

I should not feel that my task had been completed, 
if I did not say to the young scholars who may be 
within the sound of my voice, that the class of 
duties I have enjoined will require the exercise of 
renunciation and sacrifice. Young men are apt to 
draw their impressions of the world that lies before 
them from works of fiction; and the morality of 
works of fiction is false, or at least defective, in rep- 


46 


resenting well-being as the invariable reward of 
well-doing. But it is not so in truth, and in noth¬ 
ing are the ways of God more past finding out than 
in the disproportion we observe between conduct 
and reward. Wealth and honors and an easy life 
are best secured by upholding the hands of power, 
and acting with the strong against the weak. 
Under institutions like ours, they are gained by sid¬ 
ing always with the majority, and by floating with 
the current of public opinion, in whatever direction 
it may flow. Indeed, to resist an unjust and tyran¬ 
nical majority, to become the champion of the 
oppressed one against the oppressing many, is one 
of the tests which most try the soul of man. The 
victims of a tyrant’s lawless will, the martyrs of 
liberty like Sidney and Russell, are sustained even 
in their hour of sharpest agony by sublime consola¬ 
tions. Radiant forms minister unto them; air- 
drawn garlands float before their eyes; the light of 
undying glory plays round the edge of the heads¬ 
man’s axe and robs it of its smart. In the mind’s 
ear they hear the unuttered benedictions of the 
crowds thronging round the scaffold that waits to 
drink their blood. In their suffused eyes, their 
quivering lips, their clasped hands, they read the 
judgment of the future, reversing the unjust ver¬ 
dict of the present. But no such support strength¬ 
ens him whose sense of duty constrains him to 
oppose the popular will, and to brave the despotism 
of public opinion. Turn where he will, he meets 
nothing but dreadful faces of wrath and fiery arms 


47 


of menace. But even more trying than all this 
will be, or may be, the weakness of his own heart, 
the agonizing doubt piercing to the very fortress of 
the soul, whether he may not after all be wrong, 
whether the aggregated judgment of society is not 
more likely to be right than his. If it were true 
that Heaven itself would stoop to the aid of feeble 
virtue, if an authentic voice of encouragement and 
support would but come from yonder vault of blue, 
how easy it would be to bear all the peltings of the 
pitiless storm of obloquy! but those inexorable 
heavens are dumb, and the poor pilgrim of duty 
must toil on, faint, solitary, and sad, till death, the 
CEdipus, comes to solve the riddle of life. 

But none the less must the cross be taken up and 
borne to the end. To those who have been reared 
in the light of Christianity as well as in the light 
of letters, I need not say that it was never promised 
us that the yoke of duty should be easy and its 
burden light. The qualities that win and wear the 
prizes of life are estimable and honorable: they are 
the cement and cohesion of society. All honor to the 
men who, by the exercise of industry, temperance, 
energy, enterprise, and perseverance, are clad in pur¬ 
ple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. 

“ Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace ! ” 

But no country can afford to lose the more ex¬ 
alted virtues that can dispense with these prizes of 
life, and dedicate themselves to a higher service; 
that can, if need be, welcome persecution, embrace 
obscurity, espouse poverty. 


48 


o 019 308 983 5 


In the poetical history of Rome, we are told that 
a chasm was once opened in the Forum, which re¬ 
fused to close till a noble youth, on horseback, in 
full armor, leaped into the yawning gulf The 
moral of the legend is ever repeating itself. In 
the progress of opinion there are chasms which 
can only be closed by an act of self-immolation. 
There are periods in the history of every country 
in which true patriotism requires of some of its 
citizens a sacrifice like that of the young Roman, — 
a sacrifice of all they are, of all they have, of all 
they hope. And 

“ Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, 

The gods themselves throw incense.” 

And when in the history of our country that hour 
shall come, when the altar shall be built and the 
wood laid in order, may the victim for the burnt- 
offering not be wanting, and may he come from the 
scholars of the land! 


Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 






